Publisher (Chicago) Tribune (and LA Times) to emerge from bankruptcy on December 31

Reuters ^ | December 31, 2012

[Zakeet]

U.S. media giant The Tribune Co, owner of the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, said late on Sunday it will emerge from bankruptcy on December 31, ending four years of Chapter 11 reorganization.

Chicago-based Tribune said it will emerge from the Chapter 11 process with a portfolio of profitable assets that will include eight major daily newspapers and 23 TV stations. The company will also have a new board of directors.

"Tribune will emerge as a dynamic multi-media company with a great mix of profitable assets, powerful brands in major markets, sufficient liquidity for operations and investments and significantly less debt," Eddy Hartenstein, Tribune's chief executive officer, said in an email to employees. "In short, Tribune is far stronger than it was when we began the Chapter 11 process."

As part of the Chapter 11 exit, the company will close on a new $1.1 billion senior secured term loan and a new $300 million asset-based revolving credit facility.

The term loan will be used to fund certain payments under the plan of reorganization and the revolving credit facility will be used to fund ongoing operations, the company said.

[Zakeet]

We've got $1.4 billion in new debt to service ... falling viewership and readership ... dropping ad rates ... declining revenues ... no election year advertizing bonanza to prop us up ... very few employees left to lay off ... only $300 million in working capital which will keep us afloat for another couple of years ... providing interest rates don't take off and we manage to meet a number of undisclosed loan covenants ... and that's why we can truthfully say that we have emerged as a dynamic multi-media company with a great mix of profitable assets, powerful brands in major markets, and sufficient liquidity for operations and investments!

[Zakeet]

Lib Trib back in biz according to whiz ... sort of ... for the time being ... ping.

[muawiyah]

6 months tops.

[Berlin_Freeper]

Dead man squawking.

[Lancey Howard]

These scumbag Democrat propaganda organs don’t die easily.

[Olog-hai]

They will die eventually. It’ll be with a bang versus a whimper though.

[fattigermaster]

Just take one of the standard applications off the pile there, and cross out where it says “solar energy company” and write in “newspaper”...

[pepsionice]

If McDonalds had the same business approach....offering free hamburgers....they’d fail as well. All newspapers need to stop putting news up as free, and force the public to pay for access for their news stories...end of the story. At that point....most papers (not all) would survive and flourish.

[Steven Tyler]

Assets??? I will give them some cash for their tapes of Obama at the Kahlidi ( sp???) Dinner/tribute

[oldplayer]

Plus, I saw they have ditched AP for Reuters as a “cost cutting” measure! LOL I thought it was simply because Reuters was more even anti-American than AP and, thus, fit their few remaining readers better.

Oldplayer

[Buckeye McFrog]

...with the expectation of a Federal bailout (most likely an EO imposing a fee on your internet service, to be used “to support responsible journalism”.

[Dick Bachert]

Yep, all they need is readers who aren't welfare slugs who can't afford the crap their advertisers are peddling.
Sounds like a clear path to the boneyard to me. Run don't walk there.